Spring swamp hike 2023: day 2

On the morning of the second day of the hike, I woke up at approximately my normal time. And I was the first! I did not quite expect that; the others were basically living in a different time zone, and we are one hour ahead of me. But so be it! I could take a few pictures of our beautiful camping spot, and tidy up a bit. We had left some ginger (used for tea) and rice (spilled) on the ground. All very biodegradable, but not pretty! Then Henco appeared, and we could start making coffee and the rest of breakfast. And slowly the others appeared. Including Maaike, whose birthday it was! 

The weather looked a bit uncertain. But it was dry and that is the most important thing! It also was less windy. So after breakfast we packed up and set off. My tent was soaking wet; it felt quite heavy. And my original plan had involved a loop towards the village of Dent, as there was a pub on the map, but the day before we had walked so much faster then I had anticipated, that I figured we would reach the village before the pub would open. So we decided to skirt past it. We were on some track that started good but got more uneven and swampier along the way. And along it, we had a coffee break with birthday muffins!

Towards Dent

Soon after, we steeply descended into the valley. It was actually quite nice to walk in green fields for a while rather than yellow moor land. 

Beautiful ruin in the valley. Pic by Henco

We also had to cross the river. The path towards a bridge was not very clear, so we decided to ford it. And shortly after doing that we reached the Craven Way. That would take us all the way to the sleeping spot I had had in mind. It was a rather high ground, but it seemed to make sense with regard to the distance to cover, and it did have water.

It actually mattered that we did not stray too far from this designated spot. As it so happened, I had been on the phone with Roelof a while before the hike, and I had told him about my date. Roelof had asked if he would join us. I doubted that; it seemed a bit early, and logistically complex. But I did float the possibility. And in the end, the decision had been made that he would join us for the last two days. That meant he would have to find the location where we had pitched our tents. So we would have to be where we had planned to, or be somewhere with signal so we could tell him otherwise. But my phone did not have much signal; I relied on the higher ground for that.

I will do a separate post about my date, by the way! This is not the space for that.

At the beginning of the Craven Way we had lunch. And I took the opportunity of hanging my soaking tent over a gate. I am sure it was kilos lighter when I later packed it up again! And then we accepted the way up. The views got even wider. And emptier when we turned onto the ridge, and all last walls and gates vanished, and just heather remained! And then we reached the tarns that were our goal. It was a bit exposed, but the wind was not strong. And we found the spring that was on the map!

Lunchtime! Pic by Henco

Still some sign of human interference

Empty land just below the tarns. Pic by Henco

After some walking around we found the most sheltered spot. We pitched the tents. I pitched only my outer tent as we may want to sit inside for dinner. Then there was another round of washing. This time only three of us braved the water! And I was taking the coward approach and kept my crocs on. 

It had only been 3:30 when we reached the spot, so we had plenty of time. We first did a round of tea. And we had a look at the map; my estimate of when the Dutch contingent would have to leave had been a bit optimistic. We needed to cut the last day short, and that also affected the second last day. We made some sort of adjusted plan. 

Tea before dinner

Then Henco started making the starter: prawn crackers. Having climbed a lot more than the previous day, we were all hungrier! So we we are quite happy for Henco to cook the main dish not much later. He made rice with peanut sauce. Very good! And there was ‘spekkoek’ as afters.

After dinner and tea, everybody else decided it was time to go to bed. It was 7 pm. I would have liked to as well! But my date, who should be getting a name by now, would arrive that night, and I wanted to welcome him. So I periodically walked a few meters to where my phone had signal, to see if he was already imminent. And as long as he wasn't, I just completed my tent, made my notes that form the basis of these blog posts, and read a piece of newspaper I had brought. And then the message came he had left his car! He would have to walk up the flank of Whernside, and then down the ridge to us. And I intended to walk towards him. I set off, slightly aware that I was on my own in the dark on a swampy path, in an area where the weather can change rather rapidly. But nothing went wrong. And by the time I reached the wall the path goes over, I saw a light. Dave! For that is his name.

We greeted each other, and then went back to the tents. Mostly we did that without lights. There was a bit of a moon out! I sometimes switched it on if I saw some swampy bits and wanted to be sure I could jump over them in a sensible way, but Dave didn't seem to need that. And without issues we got to the tent. And it was 10 pm already, so we didn't waste time and got into our sleeping bags snappily. Another day done! And I fell asleep listening to grouse roaming outside.